FAREWELL, LIFE:

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 167, 15 July 1911, Page 13

FAREWELL, LIFE:

In writing "his coffin-words/* Suw( jNeilson gives us an ideas. V .."'~'"''-.' ■ SCHB yOJCB..FaOM_THB COFFiSJ ■---" t .Wrapped ln-the yellow, earth---".*."■'-What should I fear? . j Soar hate and shallow; mirttt,-" Never come near. ■ -•■'• Shupe ine no epttah, Sugar no rhyme— ....-..■ I loved and laughed and lived • Once on a time. .•""• ..." • S.N*'. Others have felt the need of a summary, stanza to seaL the, deed of life. There is Landor's: I strove with none, for none was worth my strife; , ' '" '■. '.•: ''" ."■ • Nature I -loved,- and after 'Nature,: Art • - I wanned both hands before the fire of life, . - Ijt sinks, and I am ready to depart." :. Or Stevenson's: ■ Under the wide and starry sky, . •Dig the grave and let mc lie Glad did I lire and gladly die, And I laid mc down with a will. - This be.the verse you grave for mc; . Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, '.'. ■And the hunter home from the hill Though that is rather epitaphic than oracular. ' . . ' ' - . . ■ :■.,. Then there is Mrs Barbauld's,. though hers, also, is not quasi-pOst-morterii:. ■ ■ ■-.' ■ . ; .\ ■■ . ■ .-... .. . . ..;. . ' fcife! we've been long together Through .pleasant and through cloudy weather;: ■■ . , . . 'Tls.hard to part when friends are dear,— Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; , . Then steal'away, give, little warning, . '..'.:.? Choose thine own time; '-■■••- Say not "good-riight," but in some brighter clime Bid mc ."good-morning.""', ~ "." ~',S"~':""'i But Gay's'epitaph-is in the' inb'deY. : " Lift Is a jest, and all thihgs."show .it; ' .... I thought-so once, but now I-know It, : U will be a pleasant exercise to try and assert your" idibsyhcracy in'a" 'few last words to life. We. offer, haif-a-guinea for not more "than eight, lines of a coffin voice, after the fashion of Neilson's or Landor's—that is, uttering your philosophic -farewell, - or-- -interpreting "the back look,-lingering, for-old love'a sake." Or: for any b'ther" embtioiL'e sake. Matter,.tp be metrical. "Rhyme . or stanza as. you please; As the difficulty of award is manifest, let's say itfs--for permanent literary quality—so that' Landor's would- win- from and NeUson's would be preferred to 'Anon's. This is "Anon's '{.":"',:■'■ TO MY OLD MATE, BILLYo .: Billy!'l've left a" world In whidi I had a world to do:] ./ . "." ' Sweating and scheming to be xlcb-4 Just such, a fool as you; ) Address : "The - Bookf eUaw" _care Edi« tor, "The.Auckland Star/ , before August ?>' " '■'""■ *"::'.'■.'